Execution
by Funnygrrl
Summary: Sometimes romance doesn't work out the way we plan it. The spaces between people grow large and communication is non-existent. Read what happens between Pacey and Joey.


Execution  
  
by PWGrrl  
  
  
  
Conjure up what you may find  
  
Cause it's soon; I can see you behind me  
  
Count all your 12 Step tries  
  
And if the consequence could speak out loud  
  
I can only pick up vibrations  
  
So get in line  
  
And fortify  
  
See, its just time to you're out  
  
And scream from the top of the moon  
  
One more time I'm pulling out the sting of control  
  
Washing your hands from the methadone  
  
Like a time bomb on reset  
  
You see, the execution by Christmas lights  
  
Seems to have its own irony  
  
So get in line  
  
And fortify  
  
Take all of your tiny wishes  
  
And dump them all overboard  
  
With me tonight  
  
So drop that cherry bomb  
  
And leave the helmet of lies  
  
There's a new rush that is waiting to meet you tonight  
  
But I may choose to leave at once  
  
When there's no one begging me to come around  
  
Begging me to come around  
  
Sha na na na....  
  
  
  
'Execution By Christmas Lights'  
  
As performed by Flickerstick  
  
Written by Brandin Lea  
  
  
  
  
  
Ok so she didn't actually leave me. If you want to get technical she was the one who actually moved from our apartment. I had made it pretty clear we were over though. I only did was she was eventually going to do. Joey had left me long before physically we parted.  
  
I can't actually blame my predicament on her. She loved me the only way she knew how, second to Dawson. We lived together, we slept together but we weren't actually together.  
  
I would do anything to make myself believe she was actually mine. I was numb around her, completely numb except for those nights when our skin touched, when there were fireworks between our old flannel sheets.  
  
A man can only be numb for so long before he longs to feel. Without feeling how do we know we're alive? I tried to be alive around her. I tried to be eighteen again. We took a vacation to the beach. That was great. Coming back to Boston though with everyone around us, with him around us. I soon realized all of my attempts were in vain.  
  
When a person gets a genuine taste of life like I had with Joey at the beach they can feel the blood run through their veins. I had spent the better part of my late teens and early twenties with my head being forced underwater. At the Cape I was able to come up for air. For a big dizzying gulp of air and a look at the sky only to be shoved back in to the cold black abyss of my own ocean.  
  
I tried to kill anything that still actively lived inside of me for her. We smiled politely. We slept next to each other with even fewer fireworks but more flannel between us. There wasn't all the dramatic fighting you have when you're eighteen. Neither of us wanted to fight, to rock the boat.  
  
Joey worked hard at her graduate studies. I worked hard at the factory making yachts with one of the most exclusive boatmakers in the world. I excelled at my job, my aprenticeship if you will. It wasn't glamourous and it wasn't Harvard. I was content telling the world that I worked grunt labor to make boats. Joey explained that I was learning to make boats so someday I could have my own business and outsell my current employer. Everything had to be bigger than it was.  
  
I wasn't as intellectual as she and Dawson and their fifty dollar words. Not as classy as their Phi Beta Kappa friends. No, I hadn't changed much. I was still Pacey Witter from Capeside, MA. And I deluded myself into thinking that could be enough.  
  
Everytime we were with those people from school, from Dawson's theatre group, or her internship at the hospital another piece of me died. Rather was given the execution by my own personal firing squad of Dawson and Joey. Eventually I had stopped being social with these people. It was easier to stand next to Jo and find solace in a steady stream of whatever kind of liquor they were serving.  
  
I was numb again. It was never so good to be completely unfeeling. I couldn't get enough to drink some nights it was sick how it took me over. Alcohol wasn't doing the job I thought it was. I found the 'cure' in the bathroom at Dr. Donovan Reed's house. Jo had been working with him on a heart valve project. Dr. Reed gave me a smile and passed his mirror with the white residue on it.  
  
One quick snort. Two quick snorts. It burned for a minute. Then that sensation led way to the best feeling I'd had since Joey and I had played together in the waves at the Cape.  
  
I guess I was naive to believe that I couldn't become addicted. That I wasn't changing from this. God I had become someone even I didn't recognize. It wasn't all the cocaine. I could see the addiction eventually wearing on me and my work.  
  
My body screamed for a fix in the middle of the night. Everything would ache when I wasn't high, even my teeth. Joey was a memory. We lived together but we were like ships passing in the night. I couldn't even pretend anymore with her. I tried but again my attempts were in vain.  
  
I was no longer a participant in my own life. I was on the bench. Watching from the sidelines as this new version of myself took over. I sat next to him as she moved every single possession she had from our apartment. I watched as her eyes filled with tears as she tried to leave him, or me or us with comforting words. It wasn't easy to see that. To see that after years together there just wasn't anything left to say.  
  
I assume she's with Dawson now. She's happy. I couldn't begin to tell you what I am. I had grand ideas of how I would live my life. I was young and idealistic. Maybe I could be that way again.  
  
A moment of clarity in the mess that passed for life came when I nearly killed myself with an overdose. I woke up two days later with blood on my face. I was sitting in my own piss and vomit. If that disgusts you then you can only imagine what it felt like to realize that this is what I had become.  
  
Rehab, 12 Step Programs and throwing myself into my work had a postive effect. I lasted eight months. I had some semblance of a life for eight months until I passed her on the street.  
  
Radiant, she was radiant. Smiling that crooked smile. Her hand touched my arm. Her presence touched my soul. We talked for only a few moments. It left me drunk with emotion and sadness.  
  
Hadn't life been easier without all of that? Hadn't I been better numb? I don't know how it happened. I don't know how long it took. But I got high. I know somewhere in the midst of being high I called her. We talked and she cried. I laid out some truths for Miss Josephine Potter. They were ugly and true. When I hung up that phone I was still numb. He was still numb. I knew after hanging up that phone that I had done nothing but upset both of us and none of those truths were the kind that would help.  
  
So I drove away from Boston. I drove away from my life. I ran from Joey. I was finsihed. I had no idea what was left for me. What's left when you're reason for existing can easily live and exist without you? What's left when you're no longer alive? What happens when you're just a waste of flesh, walking dead?  
  
I know the answer now. Laying here in the sand and the snow I know. I wanted to see the lights. Just one more time. See the Christmas displays set up in the park by the beach. I wanted to remember how much I loved snow as a child. I wanted to remember the ocean, wide and fierce yet beautiful with it's gentle lapping waves. I needed to remember a time when she loved me. When that meant something.  
  
Joey's here. I don't know how she got here. The sirens come closer to me. I can see her and I can see me. I'm watching us. She kisses my face and holds me to her. Tears spill down her cheeks.  
  
What is she doing here? Why is she here? Why is she seeing this?  
  
"I didn't know how much I believed in you until now. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please don't go, don't let this be it Pacey. Don't let this be our legacy. Don't let this be the end of us Christmas lights and the beach and too much unsaid."  
  
I opened my eyes only for a moment and was able to see what I could never find before. The place in her heart she kept for only me. I put my hand on her face. "We don't have to say it now Jo. My soul is tired I just need to rest."  
  
Her tears dampened his face as I was able to watch them from my spot on the beach. I stayed until they took him away. She stayed there too. Kneeling in the cold snow staring at the lights strung up on the decorative santas before her. She hugged her knees to her.  
  
I blew a kiss and walked in the direction home. It's not always a fairy tale ending. Life doesn't always work like we dreamed it would.  
  
I didn't understand Joey until it was too late. Same for her with me. I've left her with regret and guilt and for that I'll wander my own purgatory. She wasn't my executioner nor was she my savior but I loved her. For what it's worth now I loved her for her grace and beauty and most of all I loved her for her faults. I now remember that she wasn't perfect as none of us are. I did this to me. I made my own ending. Now I'm forced forever to wonder of what could have been had I not ended myself before God and the heavens on a beach amidst thousands of twinkling lights.  
  
Do yourself a favor, don't leave yourself wondering, wandering amongst us tired souls who gave up... life and love are pain ... pain makes us real... alive. 


End file.
